


the long cold river

by schweinsty



Series: AOS Tarsus Verse [1]
Category: Star Trek XI
Genre: Gen, Graphic Description of Corpses, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Starvation, Tarsus IV, major trigger warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-28
Updated: 2014-11-28
Packaged: 2018-02-27 06:39:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2682962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schweinsty/pseuds/schweinsty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim. Food. His mother. The aftermath of Tarsus IV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the long cold river

**Author's Note:**

> This is old; I'm just importing this & a few other things to this account before I post a couple new Trek XI fics. Please pardon the temporary spam.
> 
> PLEASE NOTE: This is post-Tarsus IV and contains flashbacks to the conditions there. While there is no violence depicted in this fic, there is a graphic description of, basically, an uncovered mass grave. Also, a character has a flashback to that and is unable to eat, and malnutrition due to starvation is an issue. If you're triggered, please take care.

the long cold river

 _I never should have sent you there_ , she told him one time when they stopped to get a soda on the trip home. _I’m so sorry, Jimmy, I’m so sorry_. She smoothed the hair on his head, and it felt really nice even if her hand was cold. He ducked away and thought _I’m not a baby any more._ She hadn’t called him Jimmy in a long time.

She hasn’t stopped saying she’s sorry yet, not last week when she finds him reading in the living room to avoid falling asleep, not yesterday when she comes back from the grocery store to find him hiding in her closet, not right now when she makes his oatmeal with extra cinnamon and extra sugar and dried blueberries and he feels sick just looking at it. It makes him feel guilty, because he knows that if he could just eat the stupid oatmeal she wouldn’t feel so bad, but he _can’t_ , he just can’t, because every time he tries to eat now the food sits like cold wet slime on his tongue and reminds him of the day he led the kids he’d been hiding in the library to the shack in the woods. Jim said they should carry the little ones and walk through the river a ways to throw off the men, so they do even though no one else wants to.

The water’s hot and brown and rancid and stagnant, and Kevin Riley gags and clutches at Jim’s neck until Jim tells him to shut his eyes and starts telling him a story. Jim doesn’t remember the story; he remembers the dead crickets on the river bank and the maggots in the mud and the way it felt when he stepped on something soft and squishy and just a little brittle that _snapped_ all of a sudden and sent him tumbling forward into the water.

“Stop,” he told the others as he bent to pick up Kevin from where he’d landed among the bodies at the bottom of the shallows. “Don’t move.”

He’d always wondered what had happened when the charges on the soldiers’ phasers ran out and there were still several hundred people left to kill. Had nightmares about it, dreaming of his aunt and uncle being led into the woods and clubbed to death or hanged or set on fire. It must have been easier just to tie rocks around their waists and drown them. The river was already polluted anyway, and everyone knew that the fungus from the plants thrived on decomposing bodies like acid.

“Close your eyes, Kevin,” he said. He picked up Kevin and cradled him against his shirt and tried to wipe the sludge off the boy’s face and wanted to bury his head in Kevin’s hair and cry but didn’t because it would scare everyone. “It’s okay.”

Kevin threw up on his sweater. It didn’t smell as bad as the bodies but it felt warm. It’s hot and sticky even if there’s not a lot of it and he can still feel the body under his feet and the sludge in his hands and the dirty dirty river water soaking through his shoes.

 _Just one little bite,_ she says. She’s almost crying now. Her eyes are wet and her lips are wobbling up and down at the corners even though she smoothes her hand over her mouth to hide it. _Just try a little bit, okay?_

He takes a deep breath and stirs his spoon in the oatmeal and lifts it up and blows on it to cool it off. It’s okay to eat now, he thinks, and closes his eyes and puts the spoon in his mouth.

It’s lumpy and lukewarm and sickeningly sweet, and one of the berries rolls over his tongue and _pops_ like something rotten in his mouth.

He gags and feels his stomach twist, but she’s crying so he grabs the edge of the table until his knuckles turn white and breathes deeply through his nose and tries to tell himself it’s solid bread and water until he manages to choke it down.

 _Good boy_ , his mother says, and smiles and wipes her face so hard her cheeks turn pink. _Thank you so much, Jimmy,_ she says, standing up and hugging him and burying his head against her chest and kissing his hair. He wants to run and hide and throw up the berries and the vomit and the wet moldy _shit_ that was at the bottom of that river, but he’s too scared to move.

 _Thank you so much,_ she says. Her tears slide off her face and wet the top of his head. It feels cold.  



End file.
